Andy & Ari On3 - Can Kalen DeBoer win a national title at Alabama within three years? | Billy Napier's win total?

Episode Date: May 16, 2024

It’s a Dear Andy show! But before Andy answers your questions, he has an announcement:He has chosen a dynasty mode team for EA Sports College Football. Hint: It’s the new team of a certain high-ranking quarterback who just emerged from the transfer portal.(0:00-6:25) Intro - General Booty to ULM(6:26-25:42) Dear Andy Intro - Kalen DeBoer's Outlook at Alabama(25:43-34:19) Billy Napier's 2024 Outlook(34:20-45:12) Best In-Game Coaches(45:13-57:26) ACC Falls Apart - Where do they go?(57:27-1:01:48) Expanded Playoffs - Buyer's Remorse?(1:01:49-1:04:07) NFL vs CFP(1:04:08-1:09:39) EA Sports Dynasty(1:09:40-1:10:17) Conclusion - See you tomorrow!On to your questions…Can Kalen DeBoer win a national title at Alabama in the next three years?How many games does Florida’s Billy Napier have to win to keep his job?Which coaches does Andy trust from an on-field schematic standpoint to win a game if both teams have equal talent?If the ACC loses Florida State, Clemson and North Carolina (or more), where would everyone else wind up?Now that Andy has chosen his dynasty mode team, which movie/TV college football program would he create for build-a-team mode?Want to watch the show instead? Head here and join us LIVE from 8-9 am et, Monday-Friday! https://youtube.com/live/qu3ZQt5zMfA

Welcome to Andy Staples on three is a dear Andy episode your questions answered by me hopefully in an adequate fashion. You have some very good questions. Very, very good questions on the show. But before we get to your questions, we have a big announcement. Remember, I said that my Dynasty Mode team, when the EA Sports College football game comes back, was going to be the team that one General Axel Booty chose Booty emerged from the transfer portal, and he is headed to Monroe, Louisiana, the ULM Warhawks. He will compete for the job under first-year head coach Bryant Vinson. Remember, Bryant Vinson was the interim at UAB when Bill Clark had to step aside. Vinson was at New Mexico last year. He was the OC. They had dramatic improvements on the offensive side of the ball. So that is where General Booty is headed. I know what you're saying. Andy, why are you talking about this? General Booty did not start at Oklahoma. He was a backup. He was still going to be a backup. They didn't even put him in that Texas game when they could not barely move the ball at all.

Remember Dylan Gabriel got hurt the week before this was 2022? And really, Oklahoma's most effective offense was the Wildcat. And it was an ugly, ugly game, and they still didn't put General Booty in. Listen, we can take that up with Brent Venables and with current Mississippi State coach Jeff Lebby, who was the OC at the time. But when a man is named General Booty, he needs to command somebody. And I am ready to watch him potentially command the Warhawks. Now he's going to have to compete with a guy named Hunter Herring

who played the first two games last season for ULM, then broke his clavicle and was out. We shall see what happens in this offense. But I drew a clear line in the sand that when I chose my dynasty mode team to build up, to take to the national championship, it was going to be General Booty's team. That is the team I shall choose. He will be my starting quarterback. Brian Vincent doesn't have to announce a starting quarterback for actual ULM right now.

He can wait till the first game. I am announcing my starting quarterback today and it's General Booty. By the way, General Booty, of course, a member of the Booty family, Shreveport, Louisiana royalty. So he's headed back to northern louisiana which is where his family is from he's he's moved around he ended up finishing high school in the dallas area but into middle school he lived in in northern louisiana and remember the booty family very accomplished abram is General's father. Abram was a receiver at LSU. Josh, General's uncle, he was a receiver at LSU.

John David, another uncle, quarterback at USC. This is going to be beautiful. Goat Dog says, you got to put a Cajun spin on it so it's Boutte. No, wrong part of Louisiana. These aren't South Louisiana people. These are North Louisiana people. And he's headed to ULM. So what is ULM known for? The best collegiate water skiing program in the nation. I'm not kidding. Like you go to their campus, they've got a lake where the water skiing team practices. They bring in water skiers from Europe to just dominate. I don't know General Booty's romantic situation, but if he winds up meeting an Austrian water skier, and they get married,

and have beautiful football-playing water skiing children, I mean, wouldn't that be the greatest transfer portal success story of all time? John in the chat, dang. No booty backing up orgy. No, Michigan, unfortunately, was not in the chat. Dang. No booty backing up orgy. No, Michigan, unfortunately. It was not in the mix. Missed opportunity, according to John.

John asking about the water skiing lake in Monroe. Are there gators in that lake? Probably. No, maybe not. It might be a little too far north for gators. Willie T. Swamp booty. Yeah.

Bayou booty. Yeah. They got bayous in Monroe. Onokuno is an Oklahoma fan. Supporting his favorite former Sooner. I support Booty, especially if he leads ULM to a win over Texas. Yeah, I think that would be quite a story. That would be quite a story if ULM could upset the Texas Longhorns.

I'm not going to go out on a limb and predict that. That's going to be a tough one. But yes, that is the hope. Bryant-Vincent in year one would like to make a splash. It's not like ULM hasn't upset big teams before. Let's not forget in Nick Saban's first season in Alabama, Louisiana Monroe went into Tuscaloosa and won that game. It's a star-studded group.

The operations director that year for Louisiana Monroe won Josh Brooks, the current athletic director at Georgia. So he was already trying to learn how to beat Alabama. They still got to work on that. If the SEC championship game last year is any indication. But speaking of the Crimson Tide, I think it's time to get into our Dear Andy questions. Because our first question is about the Alabama Crimson Tide. It is from Weeple's.

And it is this. Do you think Kalen DeBoer will win a championship in the next three years? And I'm assuming this means national championship. SEC championship. If you can compete for one, you can compete for the other. Follow-up question. After three or four years, all of Saban's talent will be gone. Will DeBoer be able to keep up recruiting well enough to win one after that talent leaves?

So, as to the first question, can Kalen DeBoer win a national title at Alabama within the first three years? The answer is yes. The answer is actually if things go the right way, he could win it this year at Alabama. Alabama's loaded. This is a team that won the SEC, made it to the Rose Bowl, played in overtime against the eventual national champs in the Rose Bowl. Caleb Downs is a major loss, but other than that, they're doing just fine. I don't think of all the really good teams from last year, they probably lost the least. They did lose Isaiah Bonin, Amari Nye Black to Texas, Caleb Downs, obviously to Ohio State, but then they bring in like Parker Brails for the center from Washington. That's

going to be very helpful. They lost Caden Proctor. They got Caden Proctor back. They got Damani Jackson from USC in the defensive backfield. They got Caden Proctor back. They got Damani Jackson from USC in the defensive backfield. They got Keon Saab from Michigan in the defensive backfield. So they are as talented as just about anybody. I think Ohio State probably has the most loaded roster in the country, but Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, they're all on a similar level. Texas is right around that level. Oregon is around that level. But I think Alabama is in a position where, yeah,

they should be one of the favorites in the SEC, even if Georgia is the best team in the SEC or Texas is the best team in the SEC, even if Georgia is the best team in the SEC or Texas is the best team in the SEC, certainly Alabama looks like a playoff team. And once you get in the playoff, you're in the tournament, you can win it. When you have that level of talent, especially, all you got to do is go on a run. So yeah, I do think it is extremely possible for Kalen to board and win a national title within the first three years at Alabama,

if not the first year at Alabama. Remember, he took a team that wasn't nearly as talented to the national title game last year. And you say, okay, it's the four-team playoff. You can do that. But think about this. His Washington team beat a more talented Oregon team twice to win the Pac-12, then beat a more talented Texas team in the Sugar Bowl. So you've also got the fact that he's a very good on-field coach. He's 104-12 in his career. Now, I realize a lot of that was at NAIA, but the NAIA piece of it, I definitely think is instructive. So it's his alma mater, University of Sioux Falls. He took over a program that was expected to compete for national titles and then immediately made it better and won national titles there.

And then that 104 and 12, three of those losses were in the pandemic season at Fresno State. That's a quarter of his losses. Everything else has been pretty darn good, especially like you look at the first year at Washington where they lose two games. He had taken over a 4-8 team. The talent was there, and he immediately made it better. So I do think he can do that. Now, as far as what he will do after the Nick Saban talent leaves, the thing is, if the players didn't believe in Kalen DeBoer, if they thought he was not the right guy, they would already be gone. This era of college football, you don't have to stick around. They could have all bounced after spring practice. But they certainly seem to like him. And in fact, I would say the Caden Proctor situation is an example of Alabama players telling Caden Proctor who just left, hey, you would really like it here. It's even better than

it was. And better is not a, I'm talking in terms of how, what the schedule is like, what practice is like. It's a different world under Caleb DeBoer versus under Nick Saban. We don't know if the results are going to be better on the field, but the players do seem to be enjoying it. So they told Caden Proctor, hey, you liked playing here. You like us. We're all pals. You would really enjoy this. And so he's back so i do think we would already know

because there would have been this mass exodus and there really wasn't like the isaiah bond thing the amari and i black thing those were probably going to happen whether nick saban stayed or not. The downs thing was definitely because Saban left and he couldn't keep him. The downs went to Ohio State. It's not like he downgraded. He made a very parallel move. So can Kalen DeBoer keep doing this? I think one of the first things he did, adding Ryan Williams to the 2024 class, which is a guy who had been recruited by Alabama heavily all along. He's from Sarah Land, Alabama.

He's a receiver, potential difference-making receiver. That was a good start. And then we talked to Tim Watts from Bama Online about how many recruits they were bringing in because they were trying to get them during spring practice to come in and look and see how this program runs now. And I think it worked pretty well. They've got 10 commits so far in the class of 2025, and it's looking very similar to what the Saban classes look like at this point at this time of the year we'll put we'll know more by the end of the summer because they'll get more commits as camp season goes goes through and you you get everybody into your camp and and players wind up deciding before their seasons start but you know if you look at where the players are from so they have five five of the ten recruits are in the top

150 in the on three industry rankings and And you look at where they're from. So Daryl Johnson's from Eastman, Georgia. Derek Smith's from Selma, Alabama. Anthony Rogers from Montgomery, Alabama. Antonio Coleman, the defensive lineman from Sarah Land, where Ryan Williams is from. Jordan Harmon, the linebacker. He's from Rome, Georgia. These are all places that Alabama has very much recruited over the years that the Saban staffs recruited very heavily.

It's not like Kalen Abor came in and said, oh, I'm from South Dakota. I've worked at Fresno State and Washington. So all of a sudden I'm going to start recruiting exclusively California and the Pacific Northwest or the upper Midwest. That's not what happened. He's following the same recruiting playbook as Nick Saban. They are going after a very similar caliber of player in a very similar area. And it's Alabama. Like if there's a really good player out in California, like Nick Saban went out to California and got Najee Harris. Nick Saban went into Florida and got Amari Cooper, Calvin Ridley, Jerry Judy.

We know they will go where they need to go to get players, but they will build primarily, you would think, from Alabama, from Georgia, from Mississippi, from nearby places. And so far, so good. And it definitely seems like they are very much in on the best players in the state of Alabama. And that's not the easiest thing right now. Because Hugh Freeze is at Auburn. Hugh Freeze is a very good recruiter.

Hugh Freeze knows exactly what he's doing in terms of building a roster. So this is not a situation where Auburn is not in the fight. Like Auburn is in the fight for everybody at this point. So it's not going to be easy for Kalen DeBoer, but I do think he has the right plan. I think you look at the assistants he retained. He retained Freddie Roach and Robert Gillespie. Those are guys who know what they're doing. They can definitely recruit that area. They've been in the SEC in the South for a long time.

Kane Womack is his defensive coordinator. Kane Womack grew up in the SEC recruiting environment. His dad, Dave, is a longtime SEC assistant. And so I think they've got a good mix of the guys who understand the lay of the land in terms of recruiting. And remember, we're in the NIL era. So you have that piece of it too. Now here's where I will say that Kayla Nabor will have it more difficult than Nick Saban would have. Nick Saban had built up such cachet that there was a discount for Nick Saban. Alabama did not have to offer freshmen as much in NIL as some other schools did. Like other schools would have to overpay. Alabama didn't. Alabama could say, here's a reasonable offer. You can take it or not, but we're Alabama.

We're going to win with or without you. And the players go, okay, I see how many first round picks that Nick Saban creates. I want to be in that pipeline. I want to be developed the way they develop those players. I'm taking the long view. And I think there are, it's funny, I want to be developed the way they develop those players. I'm taking the long view. And I think there are, it's funny because we have these coaches saying,

everybody just cares about money. Everybody just cares about us. Talking to some coaches at the ACC spring meetings this week. It's not everybody cares about only money. There are still people out there who will weigh development and what the players come out as on the other end very heavily. Players and parents. And it's interesting because I think our assumption is the players, because they're the 17 and 18 year olds, they're the ones that are only worried about money. Maybe the parents would come in and be the ones who say, no, no, let's take a little bit longer view here. That's not always how it works. Sometimes the player is the one who wants the development and the parent is the one who wants the money now. But there are still players and there are still parents who will say, maybe you don't need to take as much because we see how these people develop players like if your receiver going to ohio state i don't think ohio state has to pay you what someone else

does because you look at what has happened with garrett wilson and chris olavi and martin harrison jr and you look at how deep that room is and how good that room is you go no i think at bright heart like i can coach receivers i think there's a chance I make more money in the long run here. Georgia, if you're a defensive lineman, you don't have to get the bag, the biggest bag up front because look at what they've done. And Alabama's in the same boat, but Kirby Smart has a lot longer track record now than Kalen DeBoer does of creating these first rounders. So Kirby Smart can get the discount. I don't know that Kalen DeBoer can get the discount right now. I think they've got to prove that they're going to develop people as well as Nick Saban and staff

develop people. Then they would also qualify for that, that they're going to develop people as well as Nick Saban and staff develop people. Then they would also qualify for that. But they're going to have to work pretty hard. They're going to have to sell. And the collective may have to help a little bit. Because now, if you're going against Georgia, Kirby's the one with the longer track record there. So that part is one that Kalen DeBoer is going to have to overcome. And that's why I'm very interested.

I look at the class right now for 2025, and it looks good. Is it the highest ranked in the country? No, it's not. But Nick Saban didn't always have the highest ranked class in the country right now in a recruiting cycle usually by the middle of the football season they had ascended to number two or number one so we'll see if that's what happens here we'll see if it will also see their evaluations because that was one thing that happened with the nick saban classes a lot of times there would be a player that they really liked who might be ranked number 400. And everybody said, oh, these are the recruiting services. All they do is they

commit to Alabama and they just bump them up 200 spots. That's not true. But it's legitimate if you work at my place, if you work at the other places that rank recruits. If Nick Saban and company thought somebody is really good, that you probably go back and take another look and say, what are they seeing? Because they're pretty good at this. They're pretty fair evaluators. So again, I want to see how does the group that Alabama has committed as they get further evaluated, as you see players competing against one another in camps, as you see them compete against one another when the season starts in the fall, how does that shake out? But I think if Alabama is sitting there in the top five, near the top five in terms of recruiting rankings, going after a similar geographic footprint as the old staff,

I'd say that probably bodes well. That would be my guess. So I'm not, I'm certainly not going to predict that Kalen DeBoer is going to do anything close to what Nick Saban did at Alabama. Because that's asking too much of anybody. But can Kalen DeBoer compete for national titles? Absolutely. Can he keep the talent level at a place where Alabama can be near the top of the SEC almost every year and be competitive in the SEC and for national titles going forward absolutely well we haven't seen him over a long stretch of time but my guess would be he can do what he did at Washington and keep it rolling.

And the thing is, it seemed like if he'd stayed at Washington, what he was working on building there would have been very good, would have been able to go into the Big Ten and be good. But this is a natural question. I mean, the greatest of all time just retired. And the question is, how do you keep that up? How do you even do it? It's a very difficult situation.

A lot of people would have just said, I don't want to do that. I don't want that job. I don't want to be compared to Nick Saban. But Caleb Ward doesn't seem real intimidated by that. I don't think that bothers him too much. When we had him on the show, he was deferential to Saban, respectful,

everything you'd want, but he certainly didn't seem overwhelmed, intimidated by the job. Katie in the chat, 104 and 12 doesn't lie. Don't underestimate divorce. I think you're right. Think you're right. Here's a new question.

This is another Alabama related question. This is from An new co an eco in the chat or sorry on a Kuno in the chat is Bama at Oklahoma. The biggest game that's high to play a week before the iron bowl. Serious question. They normally play cupcakes a week prior. Don't they? The, the cupcakes had been taken off the menu by a little bit of reshuffling in the SEC schedule. But yeah, this one at Oklahoma definitely feels like the toughest tune-up. And look, Oklahoma is not a tune-up for anybody, but the toughest pre-Iron Bowl game. And I think that's one of the bigger changes in the new SEC schedule is everybody's got

to deal with this now they're playing alabama's playing mercer the week before so they have that game still but i think espn probably came in and said to the sec at some point what you're doing the week before rivalry week we can't week, we can't have this. We can't have this every year. We would like some games that people would want to watch. This is not acceptable. So now you have Alabama going to Norman the week before the Iron Bowl

and you have Auburn hosting Texas A&M. Either one of these games could trip the other up. Everybody, I'm sure, is throwing your Auburn-New Mexico State result in the chat right now, and that's fine. That was a very strange situation. That was a very strange two weeks. Auburn getting housed by New Mexico State and then probably should have beaten Alabama in the Iron Bowl, if not for a fourth and goal from the 31-yard line. I still can't believe that happened.

Still can't believe that happened. Ryan says, I think the sec holds the power in that relationship buddy with espn i disagree if they did espn would just hand over more money for that extra conference game and they have not done that yet so i don't think it's uh as uh one-sided as you think but alabama oklahoma week before the iron Bowl is going to be a lot of fun. A lot of fun. This is another one of those, oh yeah, that's going to be different. There's a lot of that in 2024. There's a lot of the, oh my God, this is definitely going to be different. While we're on the subject of late season schedules,

I think it's appropriate to take this question from Jeff. How many games must Florida's Billy Napier win this season to remain as head coach? Could he remain at 6-6 with certain conditions, such as upsetting one of the November teams or close losses and not being blown out? All right, so I don't know that there's a magic number for Billy Napier, and I don't want to sound like an AD here. I just think that's the truth. When the ADs say that in your last three and they're all against really good teams that sort of thing is the thing that that keeps them employed and obviously the converse of that is or the inverse of that is true too like you have a hot start and then you peter off, you're probably getting fired. So for Billy Napier, his schedule is extremely backloaded. This is probably the most difficult closing kick

we have seen on a team schedule, at least on paper, this century. Now we don't know that they're all going to be that good. Like is LSU going to be as good as it was last year? We don't know that they're all going to be that good. Like is LSU going to be as good as it was last year? We don't know. Ole Miss, it's still a lot of transfer guys. Does that team coalesce? If it doesn't, is it,

what does it look like at that point in November? But I think we can reasonably expect that back into the schedule to be absolutely gnarly for Florida. So what does it mean? What do you have to do? I would say seven and five against this schedule. He keeps his job. I don't think there's any question about that.

Because that means you've beaten some pretty good teams there at the front end of the schedule, and you've beaten at least two very good teams at the back end of the schedule. And if you can do that, it probably means you are competitive in the other games with the very good teams on the back end of the schedule, which if you can be competitive with those teams and you're improving, that's what you want. That's what you're looking for. So that's the hope. If you're Billy Napier and his staff, that's what you want to do. Like that, that first kick, you want to go four and one or five and oh, and then you hope you can win three, two or three on the back end and look the Kentucky game I'm kind of lumping that in there too Kentucky's in that back half Kentucky's own Florida

under Billy Napier like those two games have not been particularly close Mark Stoops plays the style Billy Napier wants to play and has played it much better so far like if you get house by Kentucky again, that might be all the, all the information you need because you're probably not going to win any of those next games if you can't hang with them. But that's the seven and five or anything better than that is the Rosie, is the easy one. Six and six is the challenging one. Five and seven, I actually think five and seven probably gets you fired.

Because you went six and six with the number four pick in the draft at quarterback. Then you went five and seven. If you go five and seven again, you kind of told us what you are. You've told us you are a middle-of-the-road record coach. You've got enough sample size at that point. Because it also means that they probably didn't beat anybody that they weren't supposed to beat. Now, if it's five and seven and they lose by one or they lose an overtime of the last four games in a row, it's a different story. But if you're five and seven, you're probably not that competitive in those games. Where it gets tricky is if you're six and six, because there is a bowl game at that point you do have you do have

more practice time more time to develop players the truth in the chat if florida goes six and six and again the six losses are like three to six points and they're keeping billy napier against this schedule i would agree i agree. If you're six and six and you're losing one possession games against Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss, and Florida State, I think you're okay. The thing about that is I think, because the schedule on the front end is harder than people realize, too. Like Miami is going to be very, Miami has a better roster than Florida right now. Now, we actually have a question where we'll get into the Mario Cristobal of it all.

I'm not, I don't think I'm picking Miami in that game quite yet. I don't think I'm there. I still think it's a bit of a coin flip. But that Miami-Florida game is absolutely a pitchforks and torches game because whoever loses, that fan base is going to just have it out for that coach. They're going to be like, we're done with you. You were supposed to win this. You can't win this. What happens now?

It doesn't matter. If Florida wins, they're going to say that about Mario. If Miami wins, they're going to say that about Billy. Pitchforks and Torches game. Just get ready. Sanford is Sanford. Although the last Florida-Sanford game, bit of a banger. Sanford hung 50 on the Gators in a 70-54 loss in Dan Mullins' next-to-last game at Florida.

But like Texas A&M is no gimme. UCF's no gimme. We don't know what Mississippi State's going to be under Jeff Levy, but you got to go there. At Tennessee, I don't think anybody's expecting Florida to win that game. So to get to 6-6, let's say you drop Miami or you drop Texas A&M. Even if you beat Kentucky, to get to six and six, you're going to have to beat somebody really good.

So that would be the sort of thing that gives you hope. If you beat somebody really good. If you are competitive with those teams down the line. Now, if they're getting blown off the field in three or four of those games at the end of the season, there's not going to be any hope. It's going to be, you've told us what you are. You're supposed to be competing at this level and you're not even close. Like it, that makes it any decision easy. But if you're in those games, then you can, you can go to the president at Florida, Ben Sass, the new guy.

And you can say, we're right there. You're seeing us getting better. You're seeing us against the teams that we're supposed to be able to compete against and we're competing, but we need just a little tiny bit more time. I don't know if that argument would hold up at six and six, but at least you can make it and you can probably be fairly convincing. So that's really where it comes down to is how that looks not necessarily what the record is i think it's it's more how it looks at that point and it's it's so interesting because like five and seven again if they go five and seven i think we can probably be fairly certain what it's going to

look like seven and five we can be fairly certain what it looked like, unless there's just some super fluky. But to go seven and five against the schedule, you really do have to be better. Six and six is where it can get a little wonky. And then you have to decide what you're doing. But I think it's pretty clear that Billy Napier has to be considerably better. And if you're going to win against the back half of that schedule, you're going to have to be considerably better. All right. Next question is from Eric. It seems to me that a head coach in D1 football needs to be many things at once, including a recruiter, a CEO, a motivator, a talent developer, and perhaps least importantly, an actual in-game football strategist. I want to focus on that last

part, the actual in-game football coach, the stuff Belichick and Saban were made of. I guess the question would be, if you gave every coach the same roster of talent on the field on game day, which coaches do you trust the most to win the game or at least give your team the best shot? Who needs to be better with the talent they're given? I'm not sure I trust Steve Sarkeesian or James Franklin or Mario Cristobal or Lincoln Riley or Ryan Day as much as I trust Kayla Navor or Dan Lanning or Lance Leipold or even Mike Norvell? That is a really interesting question. Now I will push back on one of these. Why did you put Dan Lanning in the group with Kalen DeBoer, Lance Leipold, and Mike Norvell and not in the group with Mario Cristobal and Lincoln Riley and Ryan Day? Because I would argue that Dan Lanning, based on what we've seen, has not proven

that yet. He had the most talented team in the Pac-12 the past two years and didn't win it. Kalen DeBoer had a less talented team at Washington and went 3-0 against Dan Lanning. So Dan Lanning needs to prove that to get on the good part of this list. Mario Cristobal, as we just talked about, needs to prove that to get on the good part of this list. Mario Cristobal, as we just talked about, needs to prove that to get on the good part of this list because he's got a very good roster for Miami this year. You look at their schedule and that roster and you go, okay, you need to win double-digit games with this group. Will he?

That depends. Has he learned from things like Georgia Tech last year? That's the question with Cristobal. Ryan Day, kind of the ultimate of this. All the Michigan fans making the third base jokes, well, he's got to prove them wrong. And this roster, you better prove them wrong. If you can't win with this one, you've got a problem.

Because you have more talent than everybody on your schedule. So Ryan Day has to prove that he doesn't belong on that part of the list. So which coaches would I trust if you said all talent is equal and it's just the scheme? Just what can you cook up to beat this team? What can you draw in the dirt in the fourth quarter to beat this team? What can you draw on the dirt in the fourth quarter to beat this team? Some coaches I would trust, like Dave Clawson at Wake Forest. I'd trust him because he consistently takes less talented teams and beats more talented teams. So if you make the talent equal,

I definitely trust him on game day to win a game for me. Chris Kleiman. We've now seen Chris Kleiman. He's at Kansas State. He was at North Dakota State before that. So we saw Chris Kleiman when he had the most talent. That was at North Dakota State, and he dominated. We've also seen him with usually less talent. He's had some very good players at Kansas State, but on balance, they're usually not the aggregate more talented team. And yet they've been very successful under Chris Kleiman. They won the Big 12 in 2022. I definitely think Chris Kleiman belongs on this list. Lance Leipold, I think is a great, great addition to the list from Eric. We've seen him do it at Wisconsin Whitewater,

which when he got there was not the more talented group. He built it into the more talented group. They dominated when they were more talented, but then he goes to Buffalo. He makes them better. We know what we've talked a lot about the job he's done at Kansas. We've talked a lot about what they did with less talent, how they, how much they've done less with more. And now that they have more, now that they've gotten better talent and built a deeper roster. Now we get to see what they do when the talent is closer to equal. But I think that's fun. I think more, I think mike norvell's a good addition on this list i think we saw him at florida state early with less talent and a little bit of kind of smoke and

mirrors trying to trying to overcome deficiencies on the offensive and defensive lines then they start bringing in players from the transfer portal that make that group better. And then they start recruiting guys that make both of those groups better. Now, I think we're going to see a Florida State team that like last year is better, more talented than most of the teams they play. But I also think he's done very well in the games where the talent has been fairly equal. I mean, the Clemson game last year, I think, is a really good example of that. We can say all we want about Dabo not recruiting the portal.

Clemson still has really good players. They get great players out of high school. They have developed extremely well. And you had a game where they're at home, their backs are against the wall, the crowd's going crazy. They have to have a win in that game. And Norvell and company pulled it out in overtime. I think he's proven that he's doing the type of guy that if you give him equal talent, he can win the game. So that's a good one.

Kirby Smart, I know we say he overwhelms you with talent, but I think Kirby Smart's come a long, long way schematically since that 2018 SEC championship game and the worst fake punt call in the history of the world. I like Kirby Smart as an in-game strategist. I think he's become very good. Go back to when they beat Alabama and Indianapolis for the national title, like the calmness they had. Because it felt like the beginning of the fourth quarter, that game was getting away from them.

And they just kept everything cool, kept it under control. And by the end of the game, it felt like Georgia had been dominating. But you forget that at the beginning of the quarter, you're like, oh, oh, God, this could get bad. Andrew in the chat. I'm not sold on a landing. Look at the past 30 years of Oregon coaches. All were successful. Even Helfrich was fired after one bad year. Oregon is a turnkey program. When coaches leave, not as good.

Well, yeah, and Mario Cristobal left a very nice roster for Dan Lanning. Now, obviously, it's the transfer portal era, so Lanning had to make sure he kept it. But yeah, I think you're right on that. Other coaches that might make it to the list of the guys you trust when the talent is equal but the sample size is too small so far i'd say mike elko based on what we saw at duke those first two years as a head coach like again i when when you prove to me you can do less with or more with less now i get very excited when you get more and he has more at Texas A&M. Now it's not an overabundance of more relative to who they play because a lot of the games this year, they're going to have the less talented roster. That probably won't be the case forever, but

right now he's going to have to overcome that. And I think he did a really good job at Duke early on doing that Sharon Moore again very small sample size but I look at the Penn State game last year when he's the interim head coach he's still calling plays they were struggling in pass pro and he looks at the situation and goes you you know what? Penn State ain't scoring on us. We're just going to run the ball here. That's an in-game strategic decision that not every coach would make. And he made it in an incredibly pressure-packed situation. Incredibly odd. Remember, Jim Harbaugh got suspended

on the plane on the way to the the the game and then they didn't find out till Saturday morning that he was definitely suspended that they weren't going to fight it and there wasn't going to be a court hearing or anything like that so that was a tough situation and then you go two weeks later, they're playing Ohio State and Sharon Moore, at least from a play calling standpoint, called a pretty flawless game. That tells you that this guy in game is probably tough as nails. This is a guy who is not phased by anything in game. And we'll see, because now he's got all of the other parts of being the head coach that he's

got to take care of. You know, last year he could come in and do the in-game stuff. Jim Harbaugh still had all the, all of the administrative stuff already handled. So Shromore is going to have to show that he can do that and balance the in-game stuff. But I mean, what a, what an example right off the bat of what you can do in game. I think that's pretty spectacular. Andrew says, as a Notre Dame fan, I'm shocked by how much love Marcus Freeman gets. If he doesn't make the playoff with this schedule, when will he? He was outcoached by Day, Elko, Braum, and Dabo last year. I think Marcus Freeman is in that small sample size boat, and it's on the other end of where Sharon Moore and Mike Elko are,

where you look at the Ohio State game and 10 guys on the field at the end of the game. He's got to get better. But like I said about Kirby Smart, there was a time when we would have put Kirby Smart on that side of the list too, and we put him on the good side now. So the younger head coaches are the ones who are early in their careers. Let's give them a little bit of time. But I am with you, Andrew.

I do think Notre Dame does need to do really well against this schedule because it does not offer a ton of talent. Texas A&M, Florida State, very good. I think Georgia Tech could be pretty good. But yes, Notre Dame should be looking at 10-2 or 11-1 at the end of the season. Probably 11-1, I think, is what would make you guys happy. I think you probably feel like that's about accurate, and then 11-1 is going to get them in the playoff. Our next question, on video, from Ethan.

Hey Andy, Ethan here. Thematic hypothetical question for you as you are concluding your trip to the ACC meetings. Here it is. The ACC falls apart, all of the Pac-12. Where does everybody go? All 17 teams. Where do they end up? Does the ACC's version of the Pac-2 form? What are your predictions?

All right. So I was at ACC spring meetings this week talking to everybody. Now, it's interesting because you think the Florida State and Clemson suing the league, the league suing them back, it would be super awkward. No, everybody's professional.

Everybody deals with the situation. And it kind of feels like everybody's settled into eventually this is going to happen. deals with the situation. And it kind of feels like everybody's settled into, eventually this is going to happen. Eventually Florida State and Clemson are going to get out. You had the drama with North Carolina, their board of trustees, and what they want to do. There's certain people at North Carolina who would like them to do the same thing that Florida State and Clemson are doing. And I would argue that North Carolina doesn't have to be as aggressive because one, they've already got Florida State and Clemson doing the dirty work for them. And also if there's a way out of the ACC, North Carolina could just pick its destination. The Big Ten or the SEC would

take North Carolina. So I don't think they have to be as aggressive as the other two. But I do feel like everybody's kind of resigned to the fact that this will happen eventually, because it's sort of what I've been saying all along. It's a logical thing. For Florida State and Clemson, losing at trial means you have to stay in the ACC, which is not what they want, but it's not like they shut down their athletic departments the next day. They can do that. They can survive in the ACC until 2036 if they have to.

If the ACC loses at trial, Florida State and Clemson immediately leave. North Carolina immediately leaves. Perhaps some other teams leave. And then all of a sudden, what do you do then? Your conference could dissolve in a day. So I think if you're being strategic, if you're Jim Phillips, you need to look at it this way.

The idea of you ever being in the same boat as the SEC and the Big 12 or excuse me sec in the big 10 that ship has sailed that's not going to happen you need to accept that and move on you need to figure out how to make this conference survive in the eventuality you lose florida state clemson north carolina because again you can't lose that trial. If you do, the conference is gone. Nobody gets any money. Probably the best long-term solution is you come up with a number for them to buy their way out, to buy their rights back. They pay it and you have a war chest to deal with what comes next. And I actually think with that war chest, let's just say the number is 250 million, 300 million bucks. Well, if three leave, you've got almost a billion dollars there. If four leave, you've got over a billion dollars there if four leave you got over a billion dollars there that is in in well we don't know what the payment schedule would be but there's a good chance a lot of it's in hand right now

that's not a terrible place to be now the question is where would everybody go the one for me that i think is the most interesting is duke because i've thought about this a lot over the last year and a half like what is duke without mike sheshefsky in terms of value in terms of brand value like it's still a really good college basketball program cooper flag the the guy who we we think is going to be the number one pick in the 2025 NBA draft, he's coming to Duke. That's still rolling.

So John Shire is doing a good job, but John Shire is not the icon that Mike Krzyzewski was. It felt like Mike Krzyzewski made Duke a much bigger brand, not just in basketball, but in general, because Duke football is hard. I just talked about how great Mike Elko did there, but Duke wasn't competitive for the ACC title in either of those years. It's one of those things where you're going to be okay to pretty good if you have a good coach, So what do you do if you're Duke? Like look at UConn. UConn is the best basketball program in the country. Like it does not need to be in the ACC,

the SEC, the Big Ten. Doesn't need that. Dan Hurley has built the best basketball program in the country. Like they were murdering people in the ncaa tournament and you look at what dan hurley did he lost a bunch of players he brought people in and still had a really good team like you can do that at uconn you can do that in basketball at a place like uconn but i think there's this stigma that if you if you do what uconn did which is essentially de-emphasized football that you're just giving up but i don't know that anybody uconn other than the people in the football program would be complaining about the decision they made to go independent football and go into the big east and basketball

like if you're duke you could do something like that you join the big east and park your football to go independent football and go into the Big East in basketball. Like, if you're Duke, you could do something like that. You could join the Big East and park your football team somewhere at a level that it doesn't have to be competitive with the Clemsons of the world. You could do that. I'm not sure anybody else could do that. Like, Syracuse could probably do that. I'm not sure anybody else could do that. Syracuse could probably do that. That would be an option on the table for some of those teams. Now again, if the ACC is sitting on a billion dollars in cash, I don't think they need to do anything right away. I think they can hang for a little while and then make a TV deal

and use that money to float everybody. Because I think the ACC, even if Clemson, North Carolina, Florida State, maybe some others leave, I do think most of those schools feel like they're at the level where they can still compete at the highest level of college football. And,

and what that that's going to require a financial commitment, like that actually probably has a dollar figure attached to it, or at least a percentage of revenue attached to it. Because this house versus the NCAA settlement may command that whatever comes next in terms of if the athletes become employees, if there's collective bargaining, all that stuff, you're probably going to have a salary floor one way or the other, whether they're collectively bargaining or not, you're probably going to have a floor of how much you have to pay the players.

And that could be a dollar figure. It could be a percentage of revenue, but we're going to see that. I do think the schools of the ACC, all of them are probably comfortable with that. I actually asked Jim Phillips about that yesterday. Is everybody comfortable with what that number might be? He didn't seem real worried about that. And I don't think he is. I think everybody in that league would be prepared to do that.

I think everybody in the Big 12 would be prepared to do that. So what happens there? I do think down the road, something to consider. Let's say the ACC lost Florida State, Clemson, and North Carolina, or maybe somebody else jumped too. Maybe Miami jumped or somebody like that. There's a way they all stay together and kind of stay at about the same income level, I think. Here's one thought, and this would require some handshaking, some friend-making. But what about a merger with the Big 12 at that point? Because the thing about the Big 12 is you don't worry too much about the Big 12 getting pillaged.

They've got pretty much everybody at a similar level. Everybody seems kind of the same, which is a good place to be because you don't have anybody big footing anybody in conference meetings. And also you're not worried about somebody coming in and just taking your most valuable things. The ACC, if you remove the biggest 14 ACC schools left with the 16 of the Big 12, could you not put them together? and actually create some regional divisions that would allow you to play your non-revenue sports in a very sensible way that looks like it used to be. Because obviously, if you have 30 teams, you're not going to play a 30-team volleyball schedule, a 30-team softball schedule. But you would stretch coast to coast coast and you could really make those things kind of logical. And then if you wanted to, you could have kind of jamboree type events where

everybody gets together in Dallas or everybody gets together on one side of the country and you get to add the flavor of that. And then in football, if you wanted, you could just mix and match all those teams. You could put them in different wanted, you could just mix and match all those teams. You could put them in different divisions, or you could just mix and match them. I would, I mean, I actually think it would be fun. Producer River points out West Virginia would finally have close road games. So I think that would be fun. The other thing you could do in football, if you have it that big,

you could actually split it into two divisions that are essentially two different conferences, play the winners in a championship game for automatic playoff birth in each league so you wouldn't want to drop to one league where you only get that one birth but we don't know that that's going to last either we don't know if they change things like if the sec and the big 10 grab some more from the acc we don't know if they'd just change that. So I think that's the tricky part there. But I don't think the ACC would just immediately dissolve if those guys left. Because if you settle and they've got to pay, then you have a giant pile of cash. And as the Wu-Tang Clan taught us, cash rules everything around me.

So I wouldn't think the league would just dissolve overnight. And that Big East option or the de-emphasized football being a league that emphasizes basketball thing for some of those teams, I don't think they would have to do that right off the bat. It might be a decision they'd have to make down the road, but I don't think they'd have to make that decision immediately. I think we can still feel fairly certain that those teams would want to stay on a similar level to where the Big 12 is right now, that they would be a middle class for sure, but they still might want to give that a go.

Our next question comes from Rusty. Do you think people will start having buyer's remorse about the expanded playoff? Well, the new system will help avoid what happened to Florida State. These conference title games and big out-of-conference games have less at stake in a 12-14 playoff to super conference world. I disagree. I disagree. I don't think anybody's going to have buyer's remorse about the 12 team playoff. I think it's,

it's going to be a lot of fun. And the people who fought it for years are gonna be like, wow, yeah, we were really stupid. And it's just like, there's a reason everybody else in the, in the sporting world does it this way. It's's not it's not just because they're trying to to all be the same it's because this thing works like a single elimination tournament with super high stakes games at the end of the year against the best that matches the best teams like it's a very dramatic way to decide a champion people enjoy watching that now as far as the big out of conference and, we don't know what it's going to do. I hope that big out of conference results are heavily weighted in determining who makes the playoff or who gets a bye or who gets a home game. I hope those things matter.

Because if they don't, then yeah, people stop scheduling. So committee make that matter because it means we'll get more of those. As far as the conference championship games outside the sec, they didn't really matter anyway. Like what's the last good big 10 conference championship game. Was it Michigan state, Iowa in 2015 like

it's been lopsided it's been pretty terrible so who cares the last good acc title game was 2015 clemson north carolina i guess clemson virginia tech the following year is a pretty good game but the the stakes have never felt particularly high. Big 12 title game two years ago, Kansas State and TCU. Who won the game? Kansas State. Who went to the playoff? TCU. Did that matter? Was that important? I think everybody romanticizes this stuff, but history tells us it wasn't that big of a deal. What the 12-team playoff will bring us is some late-season games that could have some serious meaning where there was no meaning before. Basically, the entire Big 12 schedule in November

is going to be highly meaningful because I don't think there's going to be a team that runs away with the Big 12. I think there's going to be a bunch of teams in the mix to make the Big 12 title game, and it's going to be very cutthroat at the end of the season to see who gets into it, and the winner of that game is going to the playoff and getting a bye. The loser of that game may be an at-large team but may not may get knocked out or there's gonna be some other team sitting there that might also be an at-large team so we don't know but we do know those games are going to mean a lot

and a lot of those games wouldn't have meant anything we've talked about this in the show the last couple days like what if Notre Dame goes into USC at nine and two and USC is nine and two and I realize that that's a pretty good first year in the big 10 for USC if that works out that way but what if they're both in line for a playoff berth and the winner goes and the loser doesn't? That would be amazing. The scenario that Cody Belair and I laid out the other day. What if Iowa's 9-2 on Black Friday playing Nebraska and Nebraska has a chance to knock Iowa out of the playoff or Iowa has a chance to win its way into the playoff. How much more interesting is that game than it's been the last few years?

I don't think that's going to be a problem at all. Andrew in the chat. Bowl season has been dead for 10 years. The expanded playoff revives at the end of the year. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. I would agree with that. This question comes from Mitch. The NFL seems to be declaring war on college football by attempting to sabotage the ratings for the expanded CFP. Both college football and pro football have declared war on college basketball, but that's a different topic. Do you think this will cause the CFP to

shrink from 12 teams? No, I do not. What Mitch is referring to is the NFL deciding to move a regular season game from the NFL network to NBC. And apparently they're moving another one to Fox on the same day that the CFP is going to have a triple header of first round games. Now, the NFL warned the college football playoff. They said, don't put the games on this day. That's December 21st this year. They said, don't do this. And the college football playoff people were like, oh no, it'll be fine. The NFL is the most popular sport in the country. It is essentially like the mafia.

You don't go against the family. They'll play nice with college football as long as college football doesn't try to compete directly. And yeah, they're trying to protect their turf. Do I think it's going to make them reduce the number of teams in the playoff? No. I think eventually, if it works out that a bunch of people tune into the NFL games instead of the college football playoff games this year,

they're just going to move the college football playoff games to not conflict with the NFL games. That's what they're going to do. Now, here's the thing. I do think if the NFL games stink, if they're just dogs of games, then the CFP games are going to be fine. They're going to draw big numbers. Casual fans will tune in because they're higher stakes.

Because remember, these are late season NFL regular season games. If they are impactful late season NFL regular season games, if there's teams with playoff chances online, if there's good teams playing, then you got a problem. So you got to hope those games stink. Now, if the games stink and people still tune into the NFL, you've got to definitely move those games. But no, I don't think they will reduce the number of teams in the playoff over this i think they'll just move the games last question this is from matt

this is after i announced that ulm was going to be my college football video game team thanks to general booty so matt says better to pick a real team for a dynasty or to use the build a team dynasty he says right now i'm deciding which team i'll create in ea college football 25 and then had four pictures included in the tweet the adams adams from avenge of the nerds coached by John Goodman. The Texas State Fighting Armadillos, not to be confused with the real-life Texas State Bobcats.

These are the Texas State Fighting Armadillos, the team in necessary roughness that was based on SMU loosely, getting the death penalty, but used North Texas' colors and facilities to film the movie. The Eastern State University Timberwolves from the program. They look like Florida State, but they played in Williams-Rice Stadium. That's South Carolina's home stadium. You know how we feel about the program on this show. Also, the Minnesota State Screaming Eagles. That would be the team from the TV series Coach, starring Craig T. Nelson. So which of those four teams would you build, would you create?

Well, me, I'm going with the Texas State Fighting Armadillos. You've got your 34-year-old quarterback, Paul Blake. Well, they said he was 34 in the movie. Scott Bakula was probably 45 when he played him. Kathy Ireland's your kicker. Sinbad is a physics professor and plays both ways on the line of scrimmage you've got a sumo wrestler for a center mano mano

it's a tremendous team and it came together at the end of the season and upset the by god texas colts so if i'm getting that group after they've just upset the by god texas colts and that's where i want to start my build a team dynasty i think that's a good place to start yes i realized that team the team was one nine and one they did did tie Kansas. Very rainy game. But I think that's a good place to start. The program, it felt like they were on the verge of a major scandal. Couple major scandals. You had your quarterback, Joe Kane. He was into some stuff off the field. Latimer, your star defensive end, when he wasn't on the juice i mean come on couldn't do anything alvin mack out for the season i i mean i don't alvin mack probably suffered a career career ending injury his leg was going about 19 different

directions fun fun story about that scene and and when it got filmed so they dug a hole in the turf at williams bright stadium and basically they were holding up a prosthetic of a mangled of a mangled leg from underneath in the hole and then they had to fill that hole back in because they they filmed at night they had to fill the hole back in so nobody at south carolina would know that they dug a giant hole in their football field but that that is a tremendous scene tremendous movie minnesota state screaming eagles look you've only got two assistant coaches. They don't seem to be terribly sharp. Hayden Fox, your head coach, is constantly dealing with

problems with his wife and daughter. It's almost like it's a sitcom. No, I'm not going with that one. And then the Adams-Adams, I mean, come on. You got a whole team that gets outsmarted by a bunch of nerds, that gets beat in a competition of physical skill by a bunch of nerds, gets beat in a burping competition by a bunch of nerds. The Ogre, Fred Palawatsky, probably your only decent player on this team. I just, I don't know. So I am building my team with the Texas State Fighting Armadillos,

not to be confused with the real life Texas State Bobcats coached by G.G. Akane, who just got Jordan McLeod from JMU as their quarterback. Steve Heisman says, you forgot Stonehands at receiver for texas state you're talking about featherstone fun fact the actor who played featherstone in necessary roughness played

alvin mack in the program his name is duane davis his son wyatt very recently played at ohio state was a five-star recruit and is currently in the NFL. So on my old show, we interviewed Dwayne Davis and he told us all these stories and told us the story about them digging the hole in the Williams rice stadium turf for that injury. But yeah, listen, what acting range for Dwayne Davis who played football at Iowa, I believe, to be a star linebacker and a lightning-fast receiver who just couldn't catch anything. The ball is my friend. The ball is my friend.

The ball is my friend. You are all my friends. Thank you for all these incredible questions. What a show. That was a blast. It's Friday tomorrow. We're going to run it back to what we did last week because we had so much fun with our guy, Dukes of Scoop. It's a Philip Dukes Friday tomorrow.

So come on back. We'll get you ready for your weekend, ready to get excited about this college football season because every day it gets closer. Every day I get more excited. We'll talk to you tomorrow.